The names of the leading men who accompanied William are engraved upon two
marble slabs inside the church, and on the hill above the village a short
column put up by M. de Caumont, commemorates the site upon which William is
believed to have inspected his forces previous to their embarkation.
It is a difficult matter to form any clear idea of the size of this army
for the estimates vary from 67,000 to 14,000, and there is also much
uncertainty as to the number of ships employed in transporting the host
across the channel. The lowest estimates suggest 696 vessels, and there is
every reason to believe that they were quite small. The building of so
large a fleet of even small boats between the winter and summer of 1066
must have employed an enormous crowd of men, and we may be justified in
picturing a very busy scene on the shores of this portion of the coast of
Normandy. Duke William's ship, which was named the _Mora_, had been
presented to him by his wife Mathilda, and most of the vessels had been
built and manned by the Norman barons and prelates, the Bishop of Bayeux
preparing no less than a hundred ships.
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